Oakland's Zero-Waste Plans Are Commendable - But Can We Afford Them?

Does anyone have any idea how expensive a zero waste policy can be?

Garbage rates could be going up dramatically if Oakland insists on pursuing zero waste now.

Do our elected officials understand how much this will cost? Recycling is a noble cause, and I'm all for it, but should we be asked to put our resources into this particular way of improving our neighborhood and our city? Is this the right time to burden our taxpayers with higher garbage rates? Isn't public safety, more police, and crime deterrence more urgent to our every day lives and well-being?

One of the biggest annual contracts for Oakland and other big cities is collecting garbage and making sure neighborhoods don't drown in rubbish or illegal dumping. Recycling is the high-flying ambition for Oakland to be environmentally safe and to reduce the mountains of garbage that rise in landfills like Altamont in Livermore. So why I am writing about such mundane topics when the Oakland A's are tied for first place and proving my prediction that they can go all the way?!

Because there are rumors floating around that Oakland's garbage collection rates will be shooting up, thanks to the city's goal to achieve zero waste. Where are the rumors coming from? Well, in the first place, garbage collection rates have shot up 23% in San Francisco, and that marvelous guardian of how a city should be run is trying to set the standard for zero waste in northern California.

Oakland is nowhere near as well off as San Francisco, and if tariffs go up by 23% in San Francisco, who knows how high they will go in Oakland.

The curbside service tariff for a single family residence in Oakland is $21.84 per month to pick up garbage once a week. That's for the basic 20-gallon mini-can. The rate goes up to $29.30 for 35-gallon, $63.89 for 64-gallon and $98.44 for 96-gallon carts - per month, per home. Imagine if those rates go up by 25% or 50% if Oakland's City Council goes ahead and says, "Sure, we want to fix the broken window syndrome of run-down neighborhoods. Sure, we want to be at the forefront of environmental social thinking and recycle all our waste."

Sounds great, but how much will it cost, and can we really afford this now?

Wake Up America, Oakland A's Part 2

So now that Barack Obama has congratulated the Giants for winning last year's World Series, it's important to remember that our president grew up in Hawaii as an Oakland A's fan.

I wonder what Obama will say when the A's show up at the White House next spring to get their congratulations for winning it all. Cuz, folks, that is what they're going to do!

The news about Alberto Callaspo coming to the A's for Grant Green is good for several reasons. Callaspo bats well against left-handers, he's got solid experience as a utility infielder and can give Bob Melvin an option to rest Josh Donaldson at third or Jed Lowrie at shortstop and platoon with Eric Sogard at second. And Callaspo has good bat control, can hit to the opposite field and add some depth to the team.

Let's skip over the A's 5-0 loss to wily Mark Buehrle and the Blue Jays last night. What a joy it was to watch last night's game when Cespedes, Reddick, Donaldson and Seth Smith all got solid hits Monday against the Toronto Blue Jays. And Yoenis finally got back on the home run track since his awesome Home Run Derby display (still wonderful to watch). With 55 games remaining in the season, our Oakland A's are in first place by five games and a 63-44 record, 19 games above .500.

Even with AJ Griffin giving up three homers to the Blue Jays (and leading with AL with 26 'taters) and Grant Balfour's stunning blown save against the Astros last week, it's pretty clear that America is finally taking notice of our guys. I think we can go all the way, past the divisional playoffs, win the American League pennant and knock off the Dodgers in the World Series. Imagine Cespedes against Puig!

 

I'm actually worried whether the Coliseum plumbing can hold up through a lot more sell-out games, but I'm pretty confident the team is on a roll.

Nothing is a done deal. Look at the Dodgers in first place, the Tampa Bay Rays pushing the Red Sox in the AL East, and the poor Giants eight games below .500 after Lincecum was pummelled by the Cincinnati Reds dissing him after his sweet no-hitter.

But I hope the Oakland A's really take it to the Majors for the rest of this season. They have played well many more times than they played badly. Loved they way they came behind three times to beat the Angels. On Sunday, when the Rangers had lost to Cleveland, the A's found themselves in a 5-0 hole after two innings against the Angels. They could have shrugged their shoulders and given up the game, They would lose no ground. But no, they chipped away, then pounded the Angels to win 10-6. The next day they pummeled the Blue Jays 9-4.

Wake Up America, Oakland A's Have Something To Crow About

Despite a disappointing 2-5 road trip, the A's have a lot to be happy about.

We're almost one third of the way through the 2013 season, and I would like to praise the Oakland Athletics. They are by no means perfect - having gotten shellacked by the Texas Rangers the other night in Arlington, 9-4 - but over the past 162 games, they have played to a record of 101 wins and 61 losses, and that's something to crow about.

The A's, that little scruffy team of no-names that plays in a lousy sewage-overflowing concrete stadium all year across the Bay from big beautiful AT&T Park and the World Champion San Francisco Giants, have built this record against all teams, not just the Astros.

Some cold, hard facts, America. On June 25 last year, after playing their first 74 games, the Oakland A's had a record of 36 wins and 38 losses, They had just beaten the Mariners 1-0 in Seattle. Since that day, their record for the next 162 regular season games has been 101-61, including last night's 9-4 loss to the Rangers!

Numbers don't lie. After they beat the Giants a year ago, the A's played 58-30, a winning percentage of .659, for the rest of 2012. They finished 2012 94-68 and won the American League West Division on the last day.

After 77 games in 2013, the A's are atop the division again, with a record of 43-34. They have done this with injuries to Josh Reddick, Yoennis Cespedes, Coco Crisp and Brett Anderson. They have reached deep into their young, maturing selves and found patience, persistence and performance.

If those commentators in New York, those national baseball writers with the Reds, Cardinals, Giants, Yankees, Tigers and Red Sox take a look at the first two paragraphs above, they might scratch their heads and say, whaddya know, these guys are one of the top teams in baseball, in either league.

We have learned that a team's season performance is not a predictor for how they will perform in the playoffs, under pressure. The Cardinals won the 2006 World Series with a .516 season record, the Orioles lost the 1969 World Series to the Mets after winning 109 season games, and let's not forget the Mariners who set a season record with 116 wins in 2001 and didn't even make it past the Yankees in the ALCS to the World Series.

Still, for regular season play, where Oakland is and has been for the past 162 games, the A's deserve recognition as a special and remarkable young ball club.

Look at the ERA of their starting rotation, look at their bullpen, look at the little guys like Adam Rosales tearing around the bases for a homer, Eric Sogard stealing bases, Brandon Moss hitting .229 and homering twice to beat the Yankees. Patience, persistence and performance. These guys are for real.

The Joy Of Oakland

The Joy of Oakland is like the Joy of Sex - so many ways to discover excitement and pleasure where you least expect it.

Okay, so that maybe that's a little much - at least I got your attention though! But, seriously, there is a lot to discover and enjoy here, as a friend of mine learned recently.

An old journalism buddy visiting from London was used to the delights of Berkeley and San Francisco on previous trips. But this time he learned there is much more to the Bay area than just San Francisco.

In downtown Oakland he discovered the joy of Pican's fabulous Tennessee whiskey margarita; on Shoreline Drive in Alameda, he devoured a parade of sushi and sake at the Sushi House, and his first baseball game EVER, watching the A's in a come from behind victory at the Coliseum.

I've talked about Pican before, and the grilled scallops and alligator fritto mist worked well with the pan roasted catfish. Oakland, you rock!

Afterwards, we drove up Fish Ranch Road to take in those epic views from Grizzly Peak Boulevard down across Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda, the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges and the SF skyline.

It's so easy from this side of the bay to disabuse people's notions about what they expect to find in the East Bay.

The clincher was a glorious Sunday afternoon at the O.Co Coliseum. Right from the start, the tailgate BBQ aromas carried us into the ballpark, and in the hot sun, fresh lemonade just hit the spot. Let the A's fall behind to add some drama, claw back a couple of runs on stolen bases, and cap it off with a Cespedes thunderbolt homer.

Just another sampling of the Joy of Oakland. I love this town.

EBMUD Questions Our Questions, But Only Muddies The Water

I got an email from The East Bay Municipal Utility District the other day. Seemingly polite, the "between the lines" message was a little unsettling.

The email from EBMUD (pasted below) seems to question facts in my previous post about a no-bid deal they got from Oakland City Council for Recology to build a food waste preprocessing plant onto their West Oakland wastewater plant site.

It's easy for them to offer a tour and say "this is an opportunity to get the facts", but I think we'd all like to know - which facts do they question, which facts do they challenge? Why throw "mud" at my blog posts without getting specific?

Just to be transparent, I'll post their email here, as well as the tour invite.

If anyone wants to go on their tour, I'm sure it would be interesting, but it's hard to tell whether or not their "facts" will clear the air or just further muddy the water.

---

From: "Chan, Gregory"
Date: May 1, 2013, 2:39:47 PM PDT
Subject: Tour Information for the EBMUD WW Treatment Plant

Dear Mr. Newhouse,

FYI, attached and below is information about various tour dates to EBMUD’s Wastewater Plant — with a particular look at water recycling, food waste and energy production.

For those members of your reader base that have read your recent blog and have expressed concerns -- this is an opportunity to get the facts.

Contact information and the reservation process are contained in the attached flyer as well as below.

Gregory L. Chan
Public Affairs Office
East Bay Municipal Utility District
375 Eleventh Street (MS 802)
P.O. Box 24055
Oakland, CA 94623-1055

Office: (510) 287-0135
Fax: (510) 287-0149
e-mail: gchan@ebmud.com
website: www.ebmud.com

TOUR EBMUD Wastewater Treatment Plant and Food Scrap Processing Facilities

Twilight Tours 5:30 pm
• Tuesday May 7
• Thursday May 23

Saturday Tours 10 am
• Saturday May 11
• Saturday June 15

Making sure that pollutants do not enter San Francisco Bay is a job we all share. Find out more about how EBMUD and our customers work together to conserve energy and water, and protect natural resources.

Tours will last about one hour and are limited to 10 people per tour. Participants must be able to walk one mile. Please wear comfortable clothes and closed toe shoes.

Location:
EBMUD Wastewater Treatment Plant
2020 Wake Avenue
Oakland, CA

Parking:
Park in small parking area at front gate

To reserve a spot, contact:
Allison Garrett
(510) 287-1445
agarrett@ebmud.com
www.ebmud.com

I'm still watching this Recology thing...Are You?

Something still stinks here.

For those who may have forgotten, the laudable goals of Recology and San Francisco - to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills - have turned out to raise some serious questions about the city's and company's claims, and Recology's credibility.

This is not the first time that I've heard or written about Recology and waste issues in Oakland and San Francisco. Nor is it even the second time (that was back here).

What this episode with EBMUD raises are more questions, especially if you want to trust the credibility of a waste company from San Francisco that has operated there without competition for 80 years and now wants to increase its activity in Oakland.

In January a state appeals court reinstated a lawsuit brought by a former Recology employe who says the company made fraudulent overpayments in its recycling program and fired him for reporting it to superiors and police. The lawsuit was filed last year brought by Brian McVeigh, a former Recology manager turned whistle-blower. It has not gone away, it has been reinstated by a state appeals court, and McVeigh's lawyers claim the alleged fraud schemes in over-reporting could cost Recology $10 million in fines.

Remember as well, that a national waste industry publication, Waste 360, also raised questions about the credibility of claims by Recology and San Francisco that the only sends 20 percent of its waste to landfill and the rest is diverted to other purposes - recycling, energy to waste, composting, etc - all laudable goals. Except that Waste 360 points out San Francisco sent 440,000 tons of waste to landfills last year. If that is only 20 percent of the city's waste, then the city would have generated 2,220,000 tons of waste, about 2.73 tons of trash for every man, woman and child in the city. If that's true, it would be more than three times the national average.

Who was it that said "trust but verify"? Yeah, well - I think the time for trusting is over. I think we need to go straight to "watching these guys like a hawk."

Do we really want to be making deals with guys who look like they have a history of pulling fast ones?

A Good Omen for this A's Fan!

Regular season is FINALLY here! Life Has Meaning Again!

Yes, the Oakland A's had a good spring, yes they beat the World Champion Giants two out of three in last weekend's Bay Bridge series, but the real omen for their success in 2013 was found unexpectedly in a Walmart in San Leandro where yours truly and his girlfriend went for a new A's hat.

As my relatives, friends, clients, and fellow denizens of coffeehouses & saloons will find, that prominent symbol of white, gold and green will be evident every day for the next six (and hopefully seven!) months through this season. So spotting a bright adjustable hat in Walmart for $14.97 (maybe twenty bucks less than at the Coliseum) was a pretty good sign. And when it went through the register for $3.28 (!!), that was definitely an omen of great tidings. No questions, just a smile and "good luck" from the register girl.

Yes, after last year's amazing season, we've said goodbye to Johnny Gomes and Brandon McCarthy, and seen the backs of Cliff Pennington, Brandon Inge and Chris Carter, but our team is hitting Opening Night against the Mariners in high gear. The Cactus League saw the A's win 17 and lose 13. While that is normally pretty meaningless, it's worth noting what the A's did in their last 10 games - they won 8, tied one and lost one, including playing three games in front of 113,000 fans at the Giants AT&T Park (where they won 7-3 and lost 3-1) and at our dusky old Coliseum, where Yeonis Cespedes hit another tremendous home run for a 4-3 victory.

Tough to see Jemile Weeks go down to Triple-A, glad newcomer Hiro Nakijima has time to recover from his sprained hamstring, and a Big welcome to -- Jed Lowrie, Chris Young, John Jaso, Chris Respo and Nate Freiman -- may you be infused with the spirit of Moneyball!

Play Ball! See if you can get one of these A's hats for $3.28 - what a way to start the season!

Something Stinks in EBMUD...Stinks Like a Back-Room Deal.

Is anybody else fed up with toxic freeway pollution and garbage stink that hits you coming off the Bay Bridge from San Francisco?

Commuters driving on 880, 80, 580 and 24 catch a whiff of the stench that residents of Emeryville and West Oakland gag on every day where those freeways converge near the expanding waste complex that EBMUD operates in the Port of Oakland.

Now the Oakland City Council has given Recology, the San Francisco waste company, an exclusive contract to bring up to 600 tons a day of waste from San Francisco and the Bay Area to a new food waste preprocessing facility Recology will operate on EBMUD land. There is a lot about this deal that has not been explained or discussed in public.

All year we've heard about the ambitious West Oakland Specific Plan to bring in new jobs and housing while protecting the neighborhood. Polluting metals recycling facilities are headed to the former Oakland Army Base. This area got wacked in 1989 by an earthquake that collapsed the Cypress Freeway. For the past 25 years dozens of plans promised to make this area more livable, end illegal dumping and fix up the broken window syndrome in West Oakland.

Does that mean it's okay to start piling in again with more garbage trucks, more composting, more food waste that stinks up the area without even holding proper public hearings at City Hall, avoiding the need for a specific CEQA Environmental Impact Report that would discuss all of these issues in detail?

Recology has had a monopoly on garbage collection in San Francisco for 80 years and spent $1.75 million last summer to defeat a city referendum to open waste collection to competitive bidding. Now, Recology has won a no-bid exclusive contract to build a facility in Oakland for trash from our city and anywhere else their trucks can deliver garbage from! 600 tons a day, seven days a week, is almost 220,000 tons a year. Recology and EBMUD put forward a laudable goal, to convert food waste to methane energy. But EBMUD's anaerobic digester can handle only 100 tons a day, and Recology can bring in 600 tons a day! Does anyone care what happens with all this extra traffic into EBMUD/Recology and where will the extra 500 tons a day go after that? Does anyone care?

The Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) says there is an "significant and unavoidable risk" which the Recology food waste facility will pose to existing pollution cancer risks already facing West Oakland residents. The City Council never discussed the EIR in any detail, and the city's own Public Works Agency supervisor told the council not to worry: "This is a land use restriction within the Port of Oakland so it’s not within a land use restriction with the City of Oakland. Yes it is a deal between Recology East Bay Organics and East Bay MUD."

They didn't. The Council voted 6-2 to approve Recology's facility on February 5, 2013. Only Larry Reid and Desley Brooks opposed. No one wrote about the decision. No one seems to care. Sounds like a backroom deal.

Reid's last comment before the vote was: "I’m just gonna say this, I’m going to vote no, we’ve often made mistakes in the past and this is another one that we’re making, and we’re going to live to regret it."

In Praise of an Older Man (Leonard Cohen @ Oakland's Paramount)

Leonard Cohen is 78 years old and still giving everything he's got.

I was learning how to ask a girl out for a date in high school when this unkempt Canadian with a gravelly voice was strumming a guitar and singing about Suzanne.

If you said Leonard Cohen wasn't the coolest man alive, I'd say you were wrong.

Cohen gave two shows this weekend before two sell-out crowds at Oakland's priceless art-deco Paramount Theatre, treating 3,000 fans each night to more than three hours of his gracious, intimate and inspiring poetry and music. He was here in 2010 for a series of concerts at the same venue.

By all accounts, he is even more energized and more gracious. In the intervening two years, of course, he had to testify against his former manager, Kelley Lynch, before she was jailed for stealing more than $5 million from his accounts while he was in a Zen monastery.

That's him there, on the left, I think.

So this is a singer, entertainer and cult icon who is back to work on a 19-city tour with nine musicians and a big back-up team, and he is gracious, tender and generous in giving himself to his audience in marathon performances such as the two he gave in Oakland this past weekend.

He opened Sunday night's concert with a tilt towards his mortality and an affirmation of his state of mind: "I don't know, friends, when we’ll ever meet again – no one can know that – but tonight we'll give you everything we've got."

If you have a chance, between now and April 21, Cohen will appear at 17 venues across North America.

We in Oakland have been so fortunate to be on his radar. Rolling Stone pretty much has got it right in its write-up of Leonard Cohen singing here in Oakland.

Oakland Enlists Community to Make First Friday Safe

First Friday resumed peacefully last weekend with appeals to end violence in Oakland and moments of silence to commemorate the the fatal shooting of Kiante Campbell, an 18-year-old Oakland high school student at February's street fest.

I like the straightforward tone set by newly-elected Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney, who stood on a stage and called out: "If you love Oakland, thrown your peace signs up."

Oaklanders, including Mayor Jean Quan, wore green and white shirts that read "Respect Our City". The street festival, which draws thousands to its mix of food, music and arts and crafts, resumed in a smaller area with a shortened time format after the shooting that left one dead and three wounded last month.

Some elected officials still ask if Oakland is focusing its limited police resources at the right issues - directing traffic around the First Friday crowds in Uptown rather keeping the peace in some of Oakland's more crime-ridden neighborhoods.

It's not an easy question to answer. First Friday and the Art Murmur movement that organized the monthly open houses for galleries and clothing stores between Broadway and Telegraph Avenues from 19th to 25th Streets had grown from strength to strength, drawing Oaklanders and visitors from around the Bay.

The shooting erupted nearly an hour after the Feb. 1 street fest ended. An account in the Feb. 27 Chronicle still cannot pinpoint who shot Campbell, but he was one of three partiers who drew guns at each other at 20th and Telegraph, a few feet away from one of First Friday's most popular dessert vans that straddles that intersection.

For last week's First Friday, authorities shrank the area of the street fest to five blocks along Broadway and Telegraph,. curtailed the festivities to close by 9 pm, one hour earlier, and strictly enforced laws against drinking in the street.

"After what happened last month, we knew that we needed to change," a First Fridays spokesman said. "We had to look at how we were addressing this and recognize the gravity of it."

The Chronicle quoted a third generation East Oaklander, Lukas Brekke-Miesner, as saying, "We're not involved because violence happened at First Friday. We;re involved because this city has a violence problem."

Where First Fridays go remains to be seen. I want them to work, I want to take more friends to disabuse them of their bias about violence-prone Oakland. I guess it's up to all of us to make this effort.

Oakland Makes Bad Situation With the A's Even Worse

Messing with the A's is sort of like messing with my emotions.

A friend of mine who likes the Raiders, A's and Warriors is fretting that Oakland will lose ALL our major league franchises because we just keep screwing up! You may remember just before Christmas a story about Lew Wolff, the A's owner who wants to move the team to San Jose, writing a letter to the city offering to renew his lease with the City of Oakland to keep the American League West Division champions at the Coliseum for another five years.

I remember feeling a sigh of relief. At least five more years for the A's in Oakland, especially after the sensational 2012 season. Right?

Then it turns out that City Administrator Deanna Santana accused Wolff of leaking the letter to the press about the lease renewal instead of sending it to city, county and coliseum officials. Wolff got furious and produced proof that he had sent this letter to Major Jean Quan, the council and public officials.

Now Ms Santana is eating crow with an apology that due to "human error" she missed Wolff's email when it was sent on Dec 21. So on Monday night she takes a shot at Wolff, telling Oakland boosters Wolff never sent that letter to Oakland leaders, he just released it to the press. Then on Tuesday Wolff refutes Santana with proof he did what he was supposed to, not what she had accused him of doing. Today we're back to the negotiations the A's and City and coliseum must navigate to keep this wonderful team in our city.

What is wrong with our city leaders? How can they be so bloody-minded, taking unnecessary shots at our A's?

The Mercury News has an account of this shabby affair. I'd love to hear your comments and thoughts on this turn of events. I'm a little too sick to my stomach to write more about it right now (yes, I *do* take baseball a little too seriously, I know). PS - as I finished up this piece and went to the little "tag" box to categorize this piece, I see I'm clicking "Oakland" and "Baseball" and "A's" and..."City Council" and "Politics." It's a little telling, and even more frustrating to me...politics shouldn't get in the way of baseball. Grrrr.

Do You Need To Carry A Gun Around In Your House To Feel Safe?

I'm not judging. I'm just asking.

I was at an Open House last weekend when someone from San Francisco asked if living in Oakland was as bad as everyone says. I live a couple blocks away in the low hills of Oakland and I said, no. I felt safe, it was a great neighborhood. I didn't mention the body of a 31-year-old Stockton man found dumped a quarter-mile from my house on a Friday in January when there were four shootings in the city.

I was thinking of the two years I have lived in Oakland since I've been back, and how much I enjoy the daily pleasures of a good-sized city with nice neighborhoods, clean streets and positive vibes. Oakland is this city, but it's also a place where, sadly, in other neighborhoods, people have resorted to fight crime with their own street patrols because they feel they cannot rely on police to help stem a wave of burglaries in their homes.

A television news team recently followed a half dozen residents in the East Oakland neighborhood of Arcadia Park, about eight miles from where I live, who are fighting crime with their own street patrols rather than calling on police.

They've been hit with 25 burglaries in the past two months, and a KPIX news team found neighbors taking matters into their own hands. "You have to walk around your house with a gun to feel safe here," is how Alaska Tarvins of the Arcadia Park Board of Directors described his situation.

It's an esoteric reference...but if you've seen the movie, you'll see where I'm going with this.

One home had been burglarized twice in 24 hours, and "wanted posters" of photographs of young men have appeared on lamp posts in connection with the robberies.

Citywide, Oakland burglaries are up 40 percent - roughly 33 every single day in 2012, according to a KGO news story. I still love this city, and I admire the guts of neighbors who will take steps to make their neighborhoods safer, like they are in Arcadia Park.

I'm not the sort of person who wants to have a gun around the house, nor am I of the opinion that if I had a gun, I (or anyone around me) would be much safer than they are now. I'm not against responsible people owning guns, but...having lots of guns hanging around gives me the willies. It's just not for me. That said - I'm starting to wonder how living here, or how living in Arcadia Park, might changes one's viewpoints on gun ownership. They certainly seem to think it's in their best interest.

What do you think?

Do you keep or carry a gun? Is it a necessary accoutrement (how's that for a big word?) for living safely in the city these days?

Mayor Quan Promotes a Class For Adults - On How To Pick Locks. Really?

This one defies belief.

In a city where the murder rate is high, burglaries are soaring and neighbors are forming vigilante street patrols (more on that bit tomorrow!), Oakland Mayor Jean Quan was out there this week promoting a class that teaches people how to pick locks? Come on, Oakland, we can do a bit better than this!

Yes, she has apologized, and yes, the class she promoted is geared towards people who misplace their keys and are locked out. But really, such blundering only inflames the city's public image and is easy fodder for all the Bay Area news outlets and the eWallStreeter.

No, really, officer - I totally lost my keys. I'm a total klutz like that. That's why I always make sure NEVER to misplace my lockpicking set.

Personally, I like the SF Weekly blog's take, and headline: WTF? Mayor Jean Quan Promotes Lock-Picking Classes, Gives Young Burglars a Chance to Suceed

Also take time to read the comments that followed the SF Weekly entry. Priceless.

Good Golfing in The Oakland Area is NOT an Oxymoron, Thank You Very Much

I detest this quote attributed to Mark Twain: "Golf is a good walk spoiled."

In fact, some dispute if he ever said that. As one who caddied for my dad when I was a 10, golf is a lifetime joy. I spent more quality time with my dad playing golf than anywhere else, and he would have loved the choice and access to good, basic golf in and around Oakland.

The public courses are well maintained, relatively cheap, and often bask in the East Bay sunshine, whether along the coast or up in the hills. None of these courses is more than $60 on weekends (I think Tilden is $65 with cart), and the bonhomie is real and welcoming - no snobs, just good folk. I've played with stroke victims who cherish every moment outdoors, I've introduced friends to Carlotta's grilled hotdogs at the 12th in Lake Chabot. I've shared twilight fairways with deer and turkey buzzards.

I've made friends at Lake Chabot, where on a clear day, the view from the 15th fairway to Oakland, Bay Bridge, San Francisco, Golden Gate and Marin is just astonishing.

The best practice area is at Oakland Metropolitan, by Oakland Airport, where the natural turf is more forgiving that plastic mats. Just north of the airport are two courses at the Chuck Corica golf complex in Alameda. You can always find a game here.

I wonder about the private course at Sequoyah, which this year celebrates its centennial, and while I love the views from Grizzly Peak Boulevard in Berkeley, I haven't played yet at Tilden Park. I just keep hearing you have to allow up to 6 hours to play on weekends, and that just is too much.

I will be playing soon at Monarch Bay in San Leandro just south of Oakland airport and will report back soon.

What's your favorite course?

Should Oakland Downsize First Friday?

First Friday & Art Murmur are good. Shootings are bad. When those two issues collide...

I watched several Oakland City Councilmembers the other week debate whether to cut back on First Friday street fairs (also known as Art Murmur) after a young man was fatally shot and three others wounded on February 1 at the end of what had been another crowded and busy monthly downtown festival.

Councilmembers Larry Reid and Desley Brooks said the street fair should be scaled back to the art walk it once was for neighborhood galleries, and that Oakland can't afford to shift 30 officers from their regular neighborhood beats to provide beefed up security for the monthly event. Lynette Gibson McElhaney defended the First Friday, pointing out the positive publicity it has brought Oakland and warning councilmembers not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

These monthly events bring thousands of people to the city's uptown and downtown districts - the music, the food, the dancing and street theater - and the economic activity is vibrant and spreading. The Trib reports that the next First Friday event will be smaller - but I hope the city's reaction will be moderate. I always have time for Robert Gammon at the East Bay Express, who says no one called for an end to football at Candlestick Park when two fans were shot in 2011. He believes it would be a mistake for Oakland to downsize or eliminate First Fridays, and I agree with him.

What do you think? Should we downsize First Friday in the name of preventing crime and other mishaps?

Sex Positivity.

Why bother with a longer headline? If the words "sex positivity" don't set the hook, what will?

Okay. It's Valentine's Day, and I thought taking my girlfriend to a fancy romantic restaurant in San Rafael would be a nice night out. A little traditional, maybe a little conservative. Staid, even. But that's pretty much the kind of person I am. I put on my "try to be a little more exciting" hat and cast around looking for some ideas other than the standard dinner out, just to see what else might be worth doing. I took a look at Oaklandlocal.com and what do I find -- a whole feature promoting "sex positivity" for women through adult boutiques in Oakland.

I know I've been away for a while, but where did this come from, when did this start, and is it basically just for women?

First stop: wikipedia. I need answers. Is this some sort of strange New Hedonism movement? A throwback to the Summer of Love? What in the heck is sex positivity? I was ready to be all weirded out. Of course, after a little research, it turns out it's a pretty normal, healthy idea, just with a strange name. Although, around here, it seems to be heavily female focused...which seemed a little strange.

The headline says Oakland is "home to several sex-positive businesses that offer more than retail". You see some adult boutiques in Oakland and Alameda that offer sex toys and tips and advice, they only mention women. Then there is this outreach to your home that sounds like a 21st century version of Tupperware or Avon Calling, where someone shows up on your doorstep with a bunch of sex toys for a passion party - but again, for women-only.

A friend of mine in Chicago started a website called Get Lusty and that has some contributions from men, but it seems like that might be an isolated example.

Sex positivity ought to reach out to everyone... I think. Right? Equal...positivity? I think this bears some further investigation, and discussion. Interesting concept and idea, and who's not for a more open, enlightened understanding of human sexuality? But if we're going to be open, and enlightened, and allow for a better understanding of this among everyone, shouldn't men be involved?

Anyway, it all sounded interesting, enticing, and possibly educational...but we ended up going out to dinner. And I'll just stop the story there ; )

A Pretty Trashy Story!

I don't expect to win converts overnight, but, trash is nasty, and there is a fascinating,disturbing garbage monopoly story about a company in San Francisco that wants to spread to Oakland, Solano County and other parts of northern California.

Recology has held a 70-year monopoly on trash-hauling in San Francisco (you might remember it in a previous iteration as Nor-Cal).

Last year it spent $1.7 million to defeat a city referendum that would have opened garbage collection to competitive bidding. Last weekend a state appeals court reinstated a lawsuit by a former Recology employe who says the company made fraudulent overpayments in its recycling program and fired him for reporting it to superiors and police.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Brian McVeigh was a supervisor at Recology's Pier 96 recycling center and later managed its buy-back center in Brisbane, where customers would be paid cash for turning in glass and metal to be recycled. At both sites, he said, he learned that employees were over-reporting weights for the trash they took in and were overpayng customers, perhaps in exchange for kickbacks.

Luke Thomas outlined the fraud scheme in the Fog City Journal last May.

McVeigh, his lawyers say, was shocked to discover that employees at the Recology recycling center where he worked were regularly inflating the weight of cans and bottles brought in by certain individuals. After further investigation McVeigh and his lawyers claim in court filings, they uncovered broader schemes to bilk government recycling programs. David Anton, one of McVeigh's lawyers, said those schemes could cost the company nearly $10 million in false claim fines. Under the False Claims Act, McVeigh could be awarded 15 to 25 percent of any recovery.

How did the scheme work? Recology’s scheme defrauded two separate government programs, Anton said. At the state level, money paid by consumers when they purchase goods in cans or glass bottles goes into the California Redempton Value (CRV) fund. Money is given back to the consumer when they recycle those goods at centers like Recology’s. Recology applied for reimbursement from the CRV funds based on the weight of the recyclables whey collect and that value is reported by employees who received kickbacks for inflating the weight for certain customers, McVeigh contends in court filings. At one center, Anton said, the inflation accounts for $1-2 million in increased CRV claims for Recology.

In San Francisco, Recology receives bonuses from the city when it meets certain thresholds for diverting waste away from landfills and into recycling programs. According to McVeigh and his lawyers, Recology over-reports the amount of diverted waste by co-mingling it with waste from third party facilities, as well as other schemes. The fraud, Anton said, is largely possible because of Recology’s monopoly on waste removal in San Francisco.

“Recology has a non-competition situation, they’re able to make San Francisco look good by having good recycling programs,” Anton said. Recology “shouldn’t need to fake the numbers to get a few million more dollars into their pocket, but they’re been doing that.”

If true, imagine the potential for further fraud if the scheme was extended to Oakland under a waste contract awarded to Recology that would permit San Francisco waste to be brought to Oakland and hauled together up to Yuba County or Solano County.

The kicker about fraudulent claims actually took place last October, when Mayor Ed Lee, who has enjoyed political support from Recology, announced with great fanfare that San Francisco had reached 80 percent of landfill diversion, waste that was being recycled instead of going into landfills. A bold and impressive claim, except that it was promptly questioned by a source no less credible that a national waste association. Chaz Miller, state programs director for the Environmental Industry Associations, wrote in Waste 360 last month about how San Francisco’s shiny new diversion rate begins to break down under scrutiny.

You may need a calculator to sort this out, but San Francisco brags that it is recycling 80 percent of its waste, meaning it sends only 20 percent to landfills and the rest is landfill diversion. However, the only figure the city’s press release gave was for 444,000 tons of waste that were landfilled. It gave no tonnage or percentage figures for recycling or composting, nor did it say how much waste was generated. So how, Miller asks, can it say how much it diverted and if it set any recycling records?

If the city sent 20 percent of its waste to landfills, then it generated 2,220,000 tons of waste. If San Francisco stands by that number then each man, woman and child in San Francisco generated 2.73 tons of trash last year, or more than three times as much as EPA’s estimated national per person waste generation rate.

Yet, the City announced grandly in October its 80-percent landfill diversion rate!

More on this to come, sooner than later. If you have any information to help us explore this amazing story further, email me at madivan@rocketmail.com

Oakland Schools Praised for Green Gloves Food Waste Composting Program

Image Source: OaklandNorth.net

Whenever I hear the words "waste" and "Oakland," I think of illegal trash dumped on our city streets.

Critics often point to dumping waste as part of that "broken-window" syndrome that drags down Oakland neighborhoods with low self-esteem, as families and kids get used to piles of garbage thrown out of cars and trucks.

So it was good to read that Oakland kids were praised last month for a unique school food waste composting program by a national waste industry magazine, Waste Age. Green Gloves has been teaching children, parents and custodians to separate out food scraps at lunchtime for composting in nearly half the city's schools.

It may be only a small lesson, but the Green Gloves/Sustainability Initiatives gives our kids a better image than illegal dumping, even if that still goes on outside the schools. Waste Management, the Houston-based contractor that holds Oakland's garbage contract, worked with about 20 schools to start the composting program three or four years ago.

Things really took off after Waste Management, the Alameda County Waste Management Authority and the school district custodians director concluded that school custodians should be more involved to make the program a success - and that means changing the mindset of 230 permanent custodians and 75 substitutes.

There are several lessons here: progressive program, environmental awareness, involving kids and their schools and parents, and finally, getting the custodians themselves to lead the change.

Oakland North wrote in more detail about the program at one elementary school. Good vibes all around.

Fanfest Re-ignites A's Fans' Fervor

Politics & social justice are important...but today, I'm talking about baseball!

Sunday morning in late January is not when you expect to find thousands of baseball fans getting together, but think again when the town is Oakland! Two months before the season opener against Seattle Mariners at the Coliseum, 10,000 fans turned up for this year's Oakland A's sellout Fan Fest.

Roaring cheers welcomed the 2013 team in the Oracle Arena and echoed their farewell standing ovation after last October's Game 5 AL playoff loss to the Detroit Tigers at the Coliseum. Chanting "Let's Go Oakland!", fans welcomed Billy Beane, AL executive of the year, Bob Melvin, AL manager of the year, along with mascot Stomper, and many of last year's stars -- including Yeonis Cespedes, Josh Reddick (whose beard may soon rival that Brian Wilson's across the Bay at AT&T Park), Coco Crisp (catch his retro Afro), and a dozen or more players to the opening chapter of the 2013 season.

Melvin said the Fanfest recaptured the deep faith the A's felt from fans whose cheers kept them on the field even as the Tigers celebrated their victory at the first base dugout.

The right field bleacher veterans greeted newcomers Chris Young (centerfielder acquired from the Diamondbacks) and shortstop Hiro Nakajima to the team. Young drew the most questions, including a fan's request to dance the Bernie (which he did with Reddick), and what flavor pie he liked best (Young nervously glanced at Reddick and behind a curtain for the walk-off ritual that hopefully awaits him this year).

Comcast commentators Shooty Babbitt and Casey Pratt fed questions to a panel including Melvin, Beane, Reddick and Young. Melvin said Young, whom he had coached in Phoenix, knows how to push all his buttons. And Beane diplomatically said Young was his choice of any baseball player in either league that he wanted to join the team off-season.

One serious question to Beane and Melvin focused on second base - where Scott Sizemore, Jemile Weeks and Adam Rosales will duke it out in spring training to replace traded Cliff Pennington. The GM and manager said that was still a question mark, but they felt good about the choices already on the team.

Go A's!

Women start "pop-up" stores in vacant Oakland storefronts

A group of inspired women, part of a Women's Initiative for Self Employment Program, has opened fledgling businesses, called "pop-up stores", in empty store fronts in Oakland and nurtured them far enough along to sign leases in these tough economic times.

In the lobby of the Paramount Theater where community groups manned stalls before the Jan. 19 tribute to Martin Luther King Jr, one flyer promoted several new stores in the Downtown and Uptown that began as "pop-ups" and now have become successful enough to sign leases.

There are so many positive initiatives to highlight here - uptown and downtown - and I hope to put a spotlight (or flashlight) on some of it to spread the word.

Shoe Groupie Boutique at 1621 Broadway bills itself as a hub for free thinkers, creativity and footwear - where founders Dion Bullock and Candice Littlefield espouse a belief in self-expression through footwear. Check out this feature about them in Oakland Local.

Betti Ono Gallery - "pop-up goes permanent" - has reopened its flagship art gallery at 1427 Broadway with support from local artists, residents and property owner Andrew Brog. Anyka Barber, gallery director and founder, says opening a business in Oakland "has been about showing what is possible, rolling up our sleeves and doing the work to help this city become a place where we can all thrive."

OwlnWood at 45 Grand Avenue is the brainchild of owner Rachel Konte to offer international brands, vintage products and local design influenced by Rachel's Afro-Scandinavian heritage. Stop by, shop local and spread the word!

Foot-Stomping Gospel in Oakland Honors MLK Jr.

Gospel music often conjures up images of Southern Baptist churches like West Hunter Street in Atlanta, not necessarily downtown Oakland and the hallowed art deco hall that is its massive Paramount Theater.

Foot-stomping, hand-clapping, soaring gospel music made an evening of sharing the dream for the exuberant crowd that filled 3,000 seats at the Paramount to celebrate and honor Martin Luther King Jr with a tribute aptly called, "In the Name of Love".

Jennifer Holliday headlined the evening on January 19 - the 11th year that Oakland and Living Jazz have given a musical tribute to MLK Jr. Her passion was steamy and the performance electrifying. Holliday is a Grammy Award winner best known for her Broadway hit Dreamgirls, and to its credit Oakland produced an ad hoc group of local musicians - two back-up singers, three brass horns, drummer, pianist, two guitarists and a synthesizer - to rock the Paramount with a world-class singer like Holliday. The musicians had one three-hour rehearsal with her, and together it was an amazing event.

Holliday capped an evening with Terrance Kelley leading the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir and the Oakland Children's Community Choir. A special treat was the veteran jazz duo of Tuck and Patti, her velvet voice and his mellow guitar closing out the first half of the program and setting the stage for Holliday.

For those of you who were staying in to prepare for the NFL conference playoffs, or those who just felt it was not worth making the trip downtown, it's your big, big loss. A wonderful and amazing, uplifting evening for Oakland and everyone who could share the dream.

Can We Stop Shooting Each Other, Please?

There's crime in the big city. Then, there's our big city...

Image Source: StopHoustonGangs.org

When I moved back here a couple years ago, I knew there were a lot of murders in Oakland, but I figured (perhaps naively) that they were mostly gang-related. A recent outbreak of shootings in Oakland, less than a month after the Newtown, CT elementary school shootings, bring the issue of gun violence closer to home and impossible to ignore.

I was driving home on Friday afternoon last week when I came across a police roadblock in Glenview, Oakland. Police had roped off the corner at Canon and Wellington where earlier that afternoon, the body of a young man had apparently been dumped by the roadside. His name was Larry Lovett, he was 31 from Stockton and formerly of Oakland - no apparent ties to the neighborhood in the lower hills of Oakland, just dumped there. That was only the beginning. Within a few hours three other murders were recorded in Oakland, and by the end of the weekend, there had been 15 shootings, all in one city - ours!

Theories abound about the firearms rampage that left four dead in one day. Was it rival gangs duking it out? Apparently the same type of AR-15 assault rifles outfitted with high-capacity drum magazines (what was used in two of these four shootings) have been used in what the East Bay Express says is an ongoing feud between the Case Gang and Money Team.

A few weeks earlier, in the same neighborhood of Park Boulevard, 27-year-old Clifford Snead was shot dead after getting off a bus. He was the father of a young son. No other explanation. It doesn't make sense.

A new coalition called SAVE, which stands for Soldiers Against Violence Everywhere, is holding local rallies at murder sites around Oakland to raise awareness.

Zachary Carey, pastor of the True Vine Ministries, is working with SAVE to pray at these sites. "When you hear about violence in America on the news, the tagline associated with it is gang-related,” Carey said. “Then if you're living in Montclair, Piedmont, Walnut Creek then you're like, ‘I'm not involved in a gang, that'll never happen to me.’ But the reality is people that are being murdered now are not gang-related, they're innocent bystanders, they're collateral damage. So if they can be collateral damage, guess what, so can you and I.”

Carey's words are pretty chilling...if that doesn't make you think it's time to get involved, what does?

Causa Justa - Because Unity *is* Power

When I was in school, a teacher taught me that the world divides into the haves and the have nots, and that economic self-sufficiency is security for those who have managed to climb into and remain within the circle of haves.

One uplifting and positive energy aspect of living in the Bay area is the attention and political will often focused on the have nots, of which there are many: those who have no home, who have no job, who have no legal right to remain in the USA, who face mortgage foreclosures and who suffer from slum landlords.

Just Causes is a group that works in East Oakland, West Oakland and the Mission District of San Francisco to put the spotlight on the plights of these have nots. A merger in 2010 of St Peter's Housing Committee and Just Cause Oakland brought about this multi-racial grassroots organization which describes its purpose as "building community leadership to achieve justice for low-income San Francisco and Oakland residents."

Take a look at their website and look for their bilingual occasional newspaper, "Just Cause|Causa Justa." If nothing else, its headlines tell armchair liberal haves that someone out there is fighting for justice - spelling out how the Dream Act can help children of illegal immigrants to qualify for Deferred Action to achieve lawful immigration status, or how to fight the national housing crisis that claims homes from hard-working families facing foreclosure.

Just Causes is full of the plights of have nots, and it shines a light on issues that can respond to good will and positive energy that are trademarks of the Bay Area.